Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1887-01-27
a reply % HENRY Geerge.


ing the blessedness Of common owner
ship in land that we have yet come across
il contained in an article by Oliver B.
Bunce, printed in the February number
of the Popular Science Monthly. Mr..
Bunce sets out, in the short space of less
than six magazine pages, to demonstrate
L. That land, no less than other things,
is a proper subject for private ownership.
Q. That labor alone does not create |
wealth.
8. That labor creates the conditions
that make land wealth just as much as it
creates the conditions that make other
things wealth.
A. That the greater part of the land is
now practically held by the community,
for 1t enjoys in common all that the land
produces.
5. That the confsoation of the rental
value of land by means of taxation would
in the main be confscation of the pro-
ceeds of labor.
6. That unearned increment in land
Of which SO much is said, is not more
hurtful to the community than other
forms of nnearned increment.
z. That the accomplishment of Mr..
Z, Georges purpose would be destructive to
the best interests OF the community.
1t is true, he begins, that labor does
not create land. 1t is equally true that
labor does not create gold, or silver, or
coal, or timber, or grain, or wool, or any
other Of the primary gifts of nature.
Labor discovers, transports, cultiyates,
fashions, blends, makes useful in some
way the free gifts of nature and they
become wealth labor likewise clears the
land, drains it, fences it, fertilizes it,
plants it, builds roads and bridges that
make it accessible, and it becomes wealth
That land is not wealth as it comes from
the hand of nature, but becomes wealth
from human connection with it, is evil
dent from the fact that wild land, when
remote from civilized centres, has no price
whatever. Conditions make the wealth
that pertains to land, and it is these con-
ditions, the result of labor expended in
improving the land and making it acces.
sible, that men buy and sell. We tall
about buying land just as we talk about
buying coal, lumber, fish, minerals,
grain, 80, when in all cases we buy
labor, conditions or rights the substances
themselves being free from the hand o.
nature. What is the price of coal in the
mine, of lumber in the distant forest, 0
fish in the sea, of metals buried thou
sand feet deep in the hills, of the phos
phorus and other elements that combin
to make wheat and corn Z Coal in mir
situated fayorably for working or tran
portation may be worth few cents ator
but coal in mines inaccessible by road
in its absolute natural state, has no pri
at all. When we buy fish we merely pt
the fisherman for his labor. 1t is cheap
for us to do this than to go ourselves al
catch the fish. So with grain, lumbe
wool, cotton and other things. Ian
coal, the metals, &C., are therefore q
slike-they are wealth by virtue of ce
tain conditions; they are not wealth
their natural state.
Labor alone does not create wealt
Three things are necessary for the prod
ton or creation of material wealth frs
natural product; second, the labor tn
fashions or utilities it : third, demand. {
foot note the writer says There are
few kinds of wealth that do not proce
from natural proddct, such as pate
rights, copyrights and productions
art. III the absence Of demand
labor has gons for nothing One man n
labor many months in producing
article that will not sell another II
labor no longer on something that col
Immediately into such demand that
maker thereof is enriched by it. La
is an Indispensable factor ia the prod
ton of wealth, but it is clearly not
sole factor.
The greater part of the land is l
practically held by the community, 70
enjoys in common all that tie land i
duces. With primitive people the
session of land is indispensable to tx
ence because there are then but two
dustries-the feeding Of herds aud
raising Of food crops. Civilization,
multiplying industries, has release,
large body Of workers from the soil
the latter are by no means cut OF d